The 24th weekend of the year is looking like a very good $201 million for the top 12 films, well above the same weekend the last few years.   Opening at over 4,200 theaters Friday (well into the top 10% of theater counts), Man of Steel from Warner Brothers should average $26,400 per theater for the […]

  OPENINGS:  Not to throw any cold water on the extremely impressive performance of THE PURGE (Universal), but it’s unlikely that the thriller will slip only 12% on Sunday, as Universal is forecasting, when the next-lowest Sunday estimate in the Top 10 is almost double that.  (The idea seems to be that after a 38% […]

Updated international box office chart.

STUDIO SCORECARD. Another very good week for Universal with the moderate domestic success of The Purge and the continued strong overseas performance of Fast & Furious 6.  The perennial also-ran studio (Universal) is now about $300 million away from #1 Disney for 2013 to date.  Universal is actually #1 for the year to date domestically but […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, Weekend #23 of 2013 looks like an okay $152 million for the top 12 films (very similar to yesterday’s estimate), down 13% from last year but 4% above the average for this weekend the past few years.  The Purge is doing much better than forecast and is propping the […]

  OPENINGS:  THE PURGE (Universal) will be instantly profitable by the end of its high $30Ms weekend, and while a great deal of that is due to the $3M production budget, a US marketing spend of only $20M (less than half the normal big-studio amount) is a big help.  The key:  minimal expensive TV advertising.  […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #23 of 2013 looks like an okay $153 million for the top 12 films, down 14% from last year but 5% above the average for this weekend the past few years.  The Purge is doing much better than forecast and is propping the weekend up. Opening at 2,536 theaters Friday, […]

The 23rd weekend of the year is looking like a wobbly $127 million for the top 12 films, well under the same weekend the last few years.  Three out of four weekends in May were anchored by solid commercial films (Iron Man 3, Star Trek Into Darkness and Fast & Furious 6).  But the first […]